Download PDF Mary Baker Eddy (Radcliffe Biography Series), by Gillian Gill
Download PDF Mary Baker Eddy (Radcliffe Biography Series), by Gillian Gill
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Mary Baker Eddy (Radcliffe Biography Series), by Gillian Gill
Download PDF Mary Baker Eddy (Radcliffe Biography Series), by Gillian Gill
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Review
"Gillian Gill offers fresh perspectives on the faith's unconventional founder...'Mary Baker Eddy' is the best biography to date". -- Books and Culture, September/October 2002
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About the Author
Gillian Gill, Ph.D., has taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Yale and is the author of Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries, praised by Carolyn Heilbrun as "the best biography of Agatha Christie yet written."
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Product details
Series: Radcliffe Biography Series
Paperback: 780 pages
Publisher: Da Capo Press (September 24, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0738202274
ISBN-13: 978-0738202273
Product Dimensions:
6.2 x 1.8 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.2 out of 5 stars
29 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#1,120,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Biographer Gillian Gill is not a Christian Scientist. When she began work on the biography of Mary Baker Eddy in 1992, she knew next to nothing about her. Besides being one whale of a writer, Ms. Gill is intellectually honest. She began the project, which consumed six years of her life, with an open mind. As an historian, she read all the books and articles about Mrs. Eddy, as well as unpublished documents in the Mother Church archive, of which she was given unprecedented access. Research and writing is often a lonely task fraught with doubt, but on her journey Gill received assistance from an unexpected source, scholar Stephen Gottschalk. Both have a Ph.D in history, Gottschalk from UC Berkeley and Ms. Gill from Cambridge. Gottschalk is author of the acclaimed “The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life†(1973). Says Gill: “(Gottschalk was) the person with whom I could gossip and argue and be outrageously speculative . . . he was my most dedicated, informed and challenging reader, sending me pages of valuable comments.†In 1866, Mary Baker Eddy suffered injuries from a fall on the ice. A doctor examined her and diagnosed her injuries as serious and possibly life-threatening. Confined to bed, Eddy asked for her Bible. Sometime later she rose and dressed herself, completely well. Her quick recovery was not the result of faith healing, she said, but a transformation of her thought about God. For the first time, she saw God not as the author of accidents, sickness, and sin, but as a loving and gentle presence who would never allow such calamities to occur in the first place. A life-long Bible reader, her unexpected healing convinced her the miracles performed by Christ Jesus were not miracles at all, but God’s divine law in action on the human mind, a divinely spiritual power which overruled the laws of matter and explained how Jesus was able to heal countless numbers of people, raise the dead, walk on water, feed thousands from but a few loaves of bread and fishes, and ultimately triumph over death. Mrs. Eddy was so convinced of the exactness of her discovery she took up the healing practice, held classes to teach others how to heal, wrote a book containing her insights (SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO SCRIPTURES), became a publisher of several Christian Science periodicals as well as a national newspaper, and formed a church with worldwide membership.Was Eddy’s healing mission divinely inspired, or, as some would have it, a sham and a fraud? The question is still debated. Over the yeas, a number of books have been written about her, some in praise of her mission and triumph, and some accusatory and venomous. Mrs. Eddy was no saint, nor did she claim to be. Like most 19th-century Americans, she was born on a farm and received but the most basic education. Her health was never good. She married three times, had two sons—one by birth, and one (an adult) adopted late in her life. Prior to 1866, she worked with a faith healer named Phineas Quimby. Quimby’s treatments brought only temporary relief and she looked elsewhere. The prayer that healed her injuries from the fall on the ice was permanent. Afterward, and for the first time, she enjoyed perfect health. As she taught others to heal, the healing practice spread. With publication of her book and the formation of her church, her fame grew and Eddy became a national figure. With fame came accusations of every imaginable sort, by disgruntled former students, leaders of rival churches, and by newspapers. Accusations included plagiarism and fraud. On top of this were a number of lawsuits, all with the purpose of getting at her wealth (Eddy won every case).Gill does not take up the issue of whether or not Eddy’s religious practice worked or not, but she does acknowledge that something must have happened to explain the turnaround of Eddy’s life, the success of her students’ healing practices, the unqualified success of her book, the quick spread of Christian Science, and in the early 20th-century the building spree of Christian Science churches across the country.Gill spent her years of research examining the letters, documents, newspaper and magazine articles and books about Eddy. At some point she must have decided the allegations against Eddy were not only unreasonable but unjust, often fabricated, and based on the barest thread of evidence. Indeed, in nearly all of the published attacks, Gill discovered evidence where information favorable to Eddy had been withheld. Without doubt, Eddy had made her share of mistakes, which Gill examines with an unprejudiced eye. Gill points out that among prominent figures, all have made mistakes, some quite egregious. Gill offers a number of famous names and their various misdeeds, but singles out Mark Twain in particular, a contemporary of Eddy’s. Unlike Eddy, Twain was given a pass, his errors overlooked or played down. Why? Because he was a man, Gill says. Also, Eddy was religious reformer, which are always a target. Old Testament prophets were stoned, and later in Europe reformers were burned at the stake. William Tyndale, who interpreted the Bible into English, for his efforts was condemned and burned at the stake. Eddy was a reformer and a woman, which made her an even greater target. Other women reformers of Eddy’s time—Elizabeth Cady Staton being most prominent—were targets as well, and, like Eddy, were accused of everything under the sun—witchcraft, agents of the devil, prostitutes, cranks, crazies, you name it.Gill examines all the evidence, early and late in Eddy’s long life (she lived to be 89), and in every case rules in favor of Eddy. Gill gives the New England woman her due, as a woman of remarkable character and unusual strength—as a religious leader and author, as the founder of a world-wide church, the creator of a publishing empire, and as a passionate leader of tremendous skill and vision. Limited education or not, she exhibited the managing skills of today's Fortune 500 CEOs. Bottom line—for a scholarly work Gill’s book reads remarkably well. I put the book down a couple of times, not because it didn’t make for fascinating reading, but because the unrelenting attacks on Eddy grew wearisome. How she struggled and managed to triumphed over them is the real story of this book.
Gill has written what may appear to be a neutral biography as she is neither a Christian Scientist trying to defend Eddy nor an ex-Christian Scientist trying to publish one's negative experiences with the church. I bought this as I was searching for a neutral book based on a historian's perspective. Unfortunately, Gill's effort does not fit the bill.While the book is not a hagiography, it is still largely an apologia of Eddy, defending or at least trying to find a rationale for some of Eddy's more quirky actions and behaviours. The chapter on Pleasant View is a typical example. Gill describes Eddy's severe, almost totalitarian control over her staff. Yet she somehow excuses Eddy's demeanor as a product of her times where women of her generation expected high standards. At the same time, Gill does not even try to explain Eddy's more bizarre thoughts such as her preoccupations with her enemies and their supposed attacks on her movement through "Malicious Animal Magnetism".Another example is Gill's analysis of the original 1875 edition of Science and Health. The church would find this edition to be extremely embarassing today due its unreadable rambling prose, yet Gill insists on defending the original edition. She reprints several sections in toto and argues about their validity, just as a Christian Science apologist would do. She even compares Eddy to Augustine, a fourth century theologian who like Eddy wrote his works in isolation. In a later chapter, she acknowledges the contribution of Rev. Wiggin in editing and improving the book so that it would be readable and marketable, but she then immediately downplays his efforts.Gill also has a tendency to make deductions or analyses of a particular event without giving any backup support; in effect she simply gives her opinion. One example is in the chapter Rebellious Students where she claims one of Eddy's earliest rivals, Richard Kennedy, was a closet bisexual. She makes this astonishing claim with no support in her footnote; in fact she mentions that the church's file on Kennedy was very slim indeed. Many examples of her opinions, essentially giving a positive spin to Eddy, can be found scattered throughout the book.In the end, one gets a largely flattering portrait of Eddy. I finished the book feeling that I did not really get her whole story. Perhaps that isn't surprising as Gill didn't have full access to the church archives and that she needed the church's support to get what limited access that they provided. Meanwhile, we must wait a while longer for a true historian's study on Eddy.
Ms Gill is not a Christian Scientist but you would suppose she has lived with her subject for a very long time. Her considerable forensic skills are just what her subject needs. In the sections dealing with P.P Quimby, the Misses Ware and Eddy's second husband Daniel Patterson, she contributes solid new material. Frequently she demolishes myths promulgated by the Mimine/Dakin/Braden biographies (and in a devastating appendix, analyses the motivations of these biographers). A new Mary Baker Eddy emerges, something of diamond in the rough but a diamond to be reckoned with, nonetheless. But if Ms Gill's objectivity is the result of not being a Christian Scientist, it also gives her book a problem. Her grasp of Christian Science theology is not...well, not complete. This leads, for example, to a very good joke about what Christian Science calls 'animal magnetism' but a joke based on a misconception nonetheless. Without a more complete understanding of Mrs Eddy's thinking, it is impossible for Ms Gill to provide a balanced view of her later years. The frenetic outward activity of Mrs Eddy's life in her eighties and even nineties is described minus the ballast of the spiritual mediation that made this activity possible. But this is still a very good book and a fun read. Ms Gill says Mrs Eddy would have enjoyed meeting Mark Twain. It's certain Mrs Eddy would have relished meeting Ms Gill.
An exterior take on the founder of Christian Science written from the outside of the denomination by a non Christian Scientist.
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